Bladesinger Wizard

 Boy, we've been here before, haven't we?

The Bladesinger Wizard is, I think at this point, the most-published subclass in all of 5E, first appearing in SCAG, then again with some light revisions in Tasha's. Now, we're getting a third version (don't worry, the three original Artificer subclasses will catch up to it in the should-have-been-published-by-now Forge of the Artificer, due in I think December). The revisions here are, I think, more extensive, and I think are probably a buff overall.

Bladesingers allow you to take your squishy Wizard to the front lines to fight in melee, and come with tools to make that a less suicidal idea. Let's look at it!

Level 3:

Bladesong:

As a bonus action, you can enter the Bladesong as long as you are not wearing armor or using a shield (which, as Wizards, we probably aren't). The Bladesong lasts 1 minute and ends early if you become incapacitated, or if you don a shield or armor (though what armor can you put on in less than a minute?) or if you dismiss it (no action required) or if you use two hands to attack with a weapon. You can invoke the Bladesong Int times per long rest, and regain one use when you use Arcane Recovery.

    So, given that it's not just on a short rest, but only upon use of Arcane Recovery, this effectively means Int+1 uses per day.

While it's active, you gain several benefits:

Agility: You gain a bonus to your AC equal to your Int modifier (minimum +1) and your speed increases by 10 feet. You also have advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks.

    So, while I'd recommend most Wizards pick Con as their second-highest ability score, Bladesingers will probably want to make this Dex (though Con is also good). If you get +3s to both, you'll have an AC of 16, though note that this doesn't change the math on how you calculate AC, but is just a bonus, so if you have Mage Armor up, that should then actually be an AC of 19, with the Shield spell also available to you - in other words, Bladesingers can push their AC to be quite high. Assuming we cap Intelligence, that's going to eventually get to 21 (or 26 with Shield) and if we push more Dex, we can get it even higher.

Bladework: Whenever you attack with a weapon with which you have proficiency, you can use your Intelligence rather than Strength or Dexterity for attack rolls.

    This is new, not in the old versions, and actually frees you up to use a lot of other weapons. While Rapiers were the obvious choice in older versions because they're the strongest finesse weapons, now you can quite easily use other one-handed weapons. Note that you'll still be at a d8 at most, because you can't use the versatile property without ending your Bladesong.

Focus: When you make a Con save to maintain concentration, you can add your Intelligence modifier to the total.

    That's a pretty big deal (and partially compensates us for having to pump Dexterity at the expense of Con). Given that most concentration saves are DC 10, this gets us closer to fully pushing failures off the board.

Training in War and Song:

You gain proficiency with melee martial weapons that don't have the two-handed or heavy property. You can use a melee weapon with which you have proficiency as a spellcasting focus for your wizard spells. You also gain proficiency in your choice of Acrobatics, Athletics, Performance, or Persuasion.

    The final piece of the puzzle. This opens up War Picks, Longsword, Rapiers, Warhammers, Battleaxes, Whips, Morningstars, and Tridents (possibly more, though that's what I can think of at this point). Most are d8 weapons, and as we don't have weapon masteries, it'll be somewhat arbitrary which we choose. Rapiers are the classic, though if my Triton Wizard had gone this route (and he had the rolled stats for it) I might have gone thematic with a trident (which are better in 2024 rules - arguably the best one-handed melee weapon). While we have to keep one hand free to maintain the bladesong, we don't actually need it to hold a spellcasting focus thanks to this feature.

Level 6:

Extra Attack:

You can attack twice instead of once when you take the attack action on your turn. You can also replace one of those attacks with a Wizard cantrip that has a casting time as an action.

    The Bladesinger introduced it, and now shares it with Eldritch Knights and Valor Bards. While Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade already let you double-dip a little on this power progression (as cantrips also scale in level,) the fact that you're now attacking with Intelligence opens up a few more options. True Strike is a solid choice for single-target damage (though because of the Bladesong bonus, I think you could argue that BB and GFB have better scaling now, each adding a d8 to your primary damage compared with True Strike's d6). Alternatively, you could do something like Chill Touch (you do have a free hand, after all). Now, given you probably have a +4 to Int at this point, Booming Blade with a d8 weapon will hit for 2d8+4, or 13 total, while Chill Touch will hit for just 2d8. Acid Splash is a decent option here, for some cantrip AoE, but I think you're overall better off with the SCAG/Tasha's cantrips. If you're restricted by your DM to 2024+ options, I do think True Strike becomes you likely best option here unless you need some range. (1d8+1d6+4 is 12, versus only 9 on average for a d8 cantrip, or even 11 with Fire Bolt). Toll the Dead could rival True Strike if you get the d12 version (which you might accomplish by making the second attack your cantrip,) as 2d12 is 13 on average.

Level 10:

Song of Defense:

When you take damage while Bladesong is active, you can use a reaction to expend a spell slot and reduce the incoming damage by 5 times the spell slot's level.

    While fully negating damage from an attack is going to probably take a pretty high-level slot at this level, the benefit here is reducing the damage by a little bit. This can really help with concentration saves - if you get hit for 40 damage by a dragon's breath, expending a second level spell slot will reduce the concentration save from 20 to 15, making it far more likely for you to succeed. But also, given that we still have a tiny hit point die despite our high AC, any way to reduce incoming damage is welcome, and by level 10, 1st and 2nd level spell slots are relatively cheap.

Level 14:

Song of Victory:

After you cast a spell that has a casting time of an action, you can make one attack with a weapon as a bonus action.

    Kind of the old version of Improved War Magic for Eldritch Knights, it does kind of make sense they didn't just take the new version, as using "two of your attacks" on a Bladesinger would be the same as just... taking the Magic action to cast a spell. Bladesingers are probably not loaded up on a ton of great damage-dealing feats (though I'll note that Polearm Master does work with Quarterstaves - though the pole strike wouldn't apply here) so that extra attack won't be huge... except when you remember that we have things like Conjure Minor Elementals. Indeed, this feature works great with that, as you can cast it with an action and immediately benefit from it.

Overall Thoughts:

The best part about Bladesingers is that at the end of the day, they're still a full Wizard. While I like my Battlemages more heavily armored and wielding big weapons (meaning basically Eldritch Knights,) this is going to be a fantastic choice for people wanting to play a melee/magic hybrid, and remains one of the best and most transformative subclasses in the game.

And that's it! All the new subclasses in the new book. I don't know that I have a fantastic instinct for determining which subclasses are the most powerful, and will have to see some of these in play. But I think that at the very least, there aren't any true clunkers like there were in SCAG. Again, I'm shocked they revisited the Purple Dragon Knight, and it remains a subclass I don't really care for.

Anyway, between this and the UA the other day, I've done a lot of subclass reviews, so I'll be happy to take a break.

Happy Halloween!